Manual-type software controllers are known. They include, e.g., potentiometers that can be manipulated by the user in the form of a console and control the different functions of music software. Such a console is disclosed in WO 01/69399.
One disadvantage of this type of controller is that they are not very ergonomic for an efficient manipulation of software. One thought has been to implement a tactile screen for the manipulation of and the access to software functions.
In the area of tactile controllers, WO 03/041006 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,570,078 disclose musical controllers with tactile control on a matrix sensor. The technologies described therein permit tactile control of the multi-contact type in which all the fingers can intervene for the control of software.
However, those publications do not contemplate a visual return of the manipulations since the different matrix sensors are of the opaque type.
US 2002/005108 discloses a system and a process for controlling in real time signal processors, synthesizers, musical instruments, MIDI processors, lights, video, and special effects during presentations, recordings or in compositional environments using images derived from tactile sensors, from matrices of pressure sensors, from matrices of optical transducers, from matrices of chemical sensors, matrices of body sensors and from digital processes. That system furnishes touchpads, matrices of pressure sensors and matrices of body sensors as interfaces of tactile control, video cameras and matrices of light sensors such as optical transducers, matrices of chemical sensors and of other apparatuses for generating digital images from processes on computers or from digital simulations. The tactile transducers can be arranged on the keys of conventional instruments, attached to existing instruments or also be used to create new instruments or new controllers. The matrices of chemical sensors and the other apparatuses for generating digital images from computer processes or from digital simulations can be used to observe or simulate natural physical phenomena such as environmental conditions or self-organizing process behaviors. Scalar matrices or vectors are processed to extract pattern limits, geometric properties of pixels within limits (geometric center, weighted moments, etc.) and information derived from a higher level (direction of rotation, segmented regions, pattern classification, syntax, grammars, sequences, etc.) that are used to create control signals to external video and visual equipment and for control or even algorithms. It also provides MIDI and non-MIDI control signals.
It does not contemplate a visual return of manipulations and does not mention a command law. Finally, it does not contemplate technical solution to the masking phenomena that intervene when several figures are aligned or placed in an orthogonal manner on the sensor. The resolution of these problems is indispensable for realizing a multi-contact tactile sensor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,689 discloses an apparatus for generating musical sounds. That apparatus comprises a device for generating positional information for generating information about the position of musical instruments (PS) as values of plane coordinates. This information (PS) is stored in a memory device or determined in a selective manner by a manual operation. The apparatus also comprises a device for the conversion of information for converting the information (PS) into information for controlling parameters of musical sounds (PD). This PD control information controls the source signals of musical sounds (S11, S12 and S13) for generating a sound field corresponding to the position of musical instruments arranged on a stage. This allows an operator to verify the positions of musical instruments on a stage, thus supplying the sensation of being in a true live performance.
It mentions a multi-contact, but it is only two contacts on an axis and not in Cartesian coordinates. The apparatus only functions linearly for the multipoint option and does not allow tracking (following of trajectory). Moreover, the apparatus requires a plurality of sensors specific to each of the instruments.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,301 discloses a solution of the musical controller type in the form of a tactile screen with visual return of the manipulated objects. However, it describes predefined objects (essentially of the sliders type and circular potentiometer type). These object types are limiting and can prove to be not very ergonomic for special manipulations. Moreover, the acquisition mode described is not in real time. In fact, an icon must first be activated by a first contact with a finger, then the manipulated object, and the values are only updated after the icon has been released. That system does not allow management in real time of the parameters associated with the object. Finally, the tactile sensor is a “mono-contact” sensor that permits the acquisition, e.g., only for a single finger and therefore the control of a single object at a time. This characteristic is very limiting for an efficient manipulation of objects.